


this was a bad idea

by Believerindaydreams (deepandlovelydark)



Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: (It's Boone), Black Comedy, Caesar's Legion, Canon-Typical Violence, Falling In Love, Hostage Situation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Sierra Madre, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Whump, the fort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:08:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 13,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29541447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepandlovelydark/pseuds/Believerindaydreams
Summary: one side, a soldier who has nothing to live forthe other, a doctor who has nothing to go back tothey're still trying, somehow
Relationships: Craig Boone/Arcade Gannon
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	1. no names in hell

**Author's Note:**

> So you're trawling Tumblr for fan art, as you do. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's great.
> 
> And sometimes you see a picture of Boone holding Arcade that makes you need to write out a whole fanfic to work out your depth of feeling about it. By the talented iceycloversart: https://64.media.tumblr.com/823023942d8f5d587c435d40da2e0c17/f24b23a0d1c29609-f9/s400x600/1ed22f837a365fcf9d764abe3d0a335c65e33eae.png

Arcade's never heard so much chaos in the Fort before.

They could use him outside, undoubtedly, but Caesar is having one of his spells. The Praetorian guard have conducted an urgent, low voiced conference and decided to stick out their role as suicide guard. No one in or out of the tent. And since he's in, he's in.

It would be rather cheerful watching their discomfiture if the word "Lanius" hadn't drifted across the conversation. Being Caesar's slave is an appalling fate. Being around here should the famously unbreakable Legate take power is a one way ticket to a cross.

He contemplates a handy bonesaw and wonders how difficult it would be to cut his way out of the tent with it. Probably very. It's made of tough stuff, though not quite resistant to the distorted screams and gunfire outside...

(What he wouldn't give for that ripper back. Or his plasma defender. Even a reasonably good straight razor- sweet rads, he may only have blurred recollection of Navarro but the siege mentality of everything going down in flames, it's the same now as it was then...)

Caesar snuffles in his sleep, turns over in illness-addled confusion. Arcade sets his teeth and starts sawing his way out, cautiously at first, then with increasing resolution. Might as well do something worth dying for, if he's going to- 

the sounds of fighting stop, just as he finally rips a tear open.

Sunset outside, burning the Fort purple and gold, and his heart turns over at clear sky and light and blessed silence. Almost peaceful, if not for the smell of blood and flesh and dying men, so...not peaceful at all, actually. The pile of corpses before him speak volumes of Caesar's ability to command loyalty, if nothing else.

His throat contracts at what looks like a young man with a blood-coated skull, before he realises what he's looking at. A beret. Specifically, of the NCR First Recon.

There isn't any thought to dragging the soldier into the tent, dousing him with bitter drink, clamping wounds close- it's pure triage, a pile of textbooks and a lifetime of training smoothly transmuted into instinct. There hadn't been any other NCR soldiers in sight.

So he'd better look after this one who's dropped out of the sky, dragging hope in his wake.

Healing powder, purified water. If he were back in the NCR- or hell, the Old Mormon Fort- he would have enough resources to be sure to bring the soldier through. Here? By the bedside of Caesar himself?

A wave of laughter threatens to scream itself loose, ebbs away as he starts stabilizing the bleeding. A merc outfit is built to be useful even in shreds, excess cloth for staunching, but this one has been shot at so many times there's not much of it left. Arcade tears off his own less-than-sterile Followers coat, destroys it without a qualm for impromptu ties and bandages.

For once, just for once, he's glad of the taboos in this tent. Somebody guarding the place should ask what Caesar's personal doctor is doing back here, but they aren't in the habit of asking about medical procedures and they won't.

More bitter drink, all that's left. Stitching. Staunching. Compression.

How long it goes on, he doesn't know, but there's a chill night wind coming through the torn rent before he allows himself to fall back, satisfied he's done everything he could. The patient's coming to. It's there in the heartbeat quickening, the flutter of eyelids.

With returning consciousness will come questions, probably. Which will get them both killed. The guards aren't stupid enough to ignore a new voice back here.

After the work he's done, he's almost too tired to care. Without the all-encompassing task to think of, he's aware now that there haven't been any sounds of battle for a long time, that things are definitely quiet again. Which in turn means this NCR initiative, whatever it is, has failed. Or they'd have stormed this tent by now.

First Recon- turned to a suicidal assassin squad, perhaps? Sent to take down Caesar?

Huh. They could have just asked him...

his patient's awake. One coolly dispassionate green eye staring him down through where a sunglasses lens ought to be. Hadn't dared touch those, in case they were prescription. One of his more frequent nightmares involves a calamity happening to his own priceless frames.

Arcade belatedly puts a finger to his mouth, the quiet signal that they say predates the war. It doesn't really cover "this is Caesar's tent, try not to wake him" or "how did you even get here and did you have an escape plan" or "you're held together with hope and string, try not to move much". It's totally inadequate to the situation. But it's all he can do.

The patient seems to understand. Moves a hand weakly, in what Arcade guesses was an attempt to reciprocate, but he can't even lift his arm. Arcade frowns at him, shakes his head, and the patient stops.

Caesar moans in his sleep, troubled. 

A brief wave of absolute panic wipes good sense utterly off the table. Arcade grabs the incriminating beret, stuffs it into the one functional pocket left in his tattered cargo pants, covers the merc remnants with bits of decaying Legion padding. It would look too fresh to be convincing, if everything wasn't soaked in blood.

There's a whole ten seconds between arranging matters to his satisfaction and Caesar opening his eyes, all of which is spent exhaling a very long breath.

"What the fuck is going on in here? Do you imagine I keep you around to trail after every recruit who gets a nose bleed?"

"It was a bit more serious than that. And besides," Arcade says. "He did stop an NCR First Recon from taking your head off, that probably counts for...something?"

"Did he? Hmm." Caesar leans over the edge of his bed, looks at the patient in the dirt with an eagle eye. "I like your spirit. Very violent."

If only the patient had been able to move, Arcade figures, going by that glare both he and Caesar would have had about thirty seconds to live.


	2. couldn't call this a meet cute

The worst thing for crippled people is being moved, so obviously Caesar's Legion has insisted that his patient be lugged into a bumpy Brahmin cart. The patient lies in it, clearly hating the world and everything in it, and Arcade can't blame him.

Where they're going he doesn't know, almost doesn't care. The NCR raid, whatever it was, has evidently spooked Caesar; he's pulling his HQ out of the Fort, to somewhere even more defensible. Arizona maybe, who knows. Caesar rides on a palanquin carried aloft by four burly guards, does a fair impression of a man unscathed.

Being out of his presence should be a comfort- it is- but it underlies how vulnerable he is. A madman's fickle whim is all that protects him from the slave collar and torture and arena fights. And by extension, his patient.

Which seems more important right now, if he's being honest. Self loathing has nothing on a desire to protect.

(Sweet rads, his eyes are so very bright and ferocious.)

Arcade opens another bottle, gently tucks his hand beneath the patient's shoulders. "I'd like to give you some water now, if you think you're up to it."

"...yeah."

It's a brief, empty voice, one that absolutely dares anyone to make it say "Ave", and Arcade has qualms about what will happen when the man is coherent enough to receive Caesar's planned adulation. Whoever his patient is, subtlety isn't amongst his virtues.

Still...

he props the patient up, watching with distant satisfaction as the water diminishes with urgent rapidity- water's healing, if your internal organs aren't perforated. And if his were he's dead anyway. So, a good sign, optimistically.

Friable, fragile optimism is the only thing that's kept him going thus far, that's for sure.

"If you can keep that down, I'll give you something to eat towards evening." At the Old Mormon Fort he'd hook this man up to a blood pack, give it a few days before reintroducing solids. Under present circumstances, they don't have the luxury of time- he is winging it on so many levels here, helpless without the basic resources he still wants to take for granted.

Siri would know better than him, maybe. He wishes he knew where she went in the confusion. Away to safety if she was fortunate.

"Mmm," the man says, when the bottle is empty. "...I would really like my hat back."

Oh. Moment of truth time, then. He isn't ready to participate in a soldier's suicidal last stand.

Because that has to be what this is about, isn't it? Taking on Caesar, stopping him by any means necessary. No quarter asked or given.

Arcade turns the bottle over, thinking as fast as his tired brain will let him. Should have seen this coming, but-

maybe honesty won't save him, but it's all he has right now.

"All right. They'll kill you if they find it." The Legion doesn't take trophies.

A slow, almost imperceptible nod.

Arcade draws it out, closes his patient's fingers around the rough cloth and covers it with the scrap of what was a Followers shoulder patch. "Don't kill anybody until I'm sure you're fit. No point going off half-cocked when you've made it this far."

That's it- he's said the magic words, eased a tension in this patient that's been a stubborn hold even in sleep. Someone who has exactly one objective in life, but he's willing to wait until he can do it right.

"Smart way of putting it," the patient says, low husky rasp that might be trachea trauma or just a short way of speaking, hard to guess. "Or your neck would have been next."

Nursing another psychopath, hum.

At least this one isn't trying to destroy the Mojave.


	3. circling the wagons

Mountain air, crisp and cold. Now would be such a good time to have a cosy lab coat with reinforced stitching.

Arcade slides off the bedroll and curls into a tight ball so he can pull the unwieldy object over him, privately cursing the height that makes him too tall for everything. Again.

His patient is sleeping soundly besides him, pink and healthy-looking now, heaven knows how with the unpredictable bump-crash of the cart. They say a top-tier NCR soldier has survival training enough to cope with anything. Which this man has to be, else he wouldn't be here.

Not that he necessarily looks it. Heavy, stolid, at a guess he would have assumed a straightforward sniper type, the kind who sits in a cairn two miles off and takes out targets with expertise, not straight slugging. The NCR has a knack for fitting people into neat bureaucratic slots, and those suggest this man has no business being in the middle of the front lines- just sniping them. The mysteries pile up.

Not his usual type. Not really his type at all.

It helps to keep reminding himself of that, and the dignity of a doctor-patient relationship and the generally poor opinion that the Legion bears towards queers, because it is proving very, very difficult right now not to jump the other man's bones. It's cold. It's someone else who hates the Legion as much as he does. It's the first stir of arousal he's noticed since New Vegas and hormones are not helping the situation.

Arcade swallows and arranges his sleeping position with deliberate care. Lying on the cart's rough wood isn't so bad, he needs protection from the wind more. It's whipping up hard now.

He closes his eyes. Hates himself a little for being needy enough to put his hand out, looking for comfort.

It intersects with a hard, dusty palm, warmer than his own; and that simple contact is enough, for now. He falls asleep quickly.

***

When he wakes up the cart has stopped again, they're up high enough to make the air rasp in his lungs, and somebody has draped a dog hide over him. It stinks. It is, however, warm; and he immediately guesses who was responsible for that gesture. Antony doesn't part with his dog relics unless he's been impressed.

So...

Arcade peers over the edge of the cart, sees his patient kneeling at a nearby campfire. A stab of hunger hits him at the smell of stew, seasoned in a way uncharacteristic of slave cooking.

He heads over and sits down, rubbing blood back into cramped legs. "Thanks for the, uh, dog throw."

"Don't mention it."

Promising start to a conversation. Maybe try another tack. "Did you get that from the regular mess, or swap for it from that explorer with the broken nose?"

"Second one. Why?"

"Because he says he had the recipe off a Fiend, and I have a fairly clear notion he means the one who liked eating human flesh."

"Huh," his patient says, spooning bubbling stew into a bowl. "After what I've seen, doesn't matter."

Can't argue with that, Arcade decides. He takes a squashed potato from his pack, starts hacking it into bits with a spoon. It'll boil quicker that way.

"You'll..." It feels like an unpardonable broach to say what he's going to say. "You'll need a name. A Legion one, I mean."

"Got one already. Karolus." There's a flicker over the man's face, almost a smile. "It'll last until I get back in Caesar's presence with a gun in my hand."

"They haven't issued you a replacement weapon?" There had been a trail carbine nearby, he remembers. Broken in half.

"Not how the Legion works, doc. I can't take Caesar with this goddamn machete."

Oh, right. The dog-eat-dog machinery, he'll have to scavenge his own. Survival of the fittest as applied to quartermaster supplies.

"...so what's your name, and why the hell did you end up here?"

The question gives him a sudden dizzying moment of self-actualization, to be the subject of simple human interest again. "Arcade Gannon. I was one of the Followers helping out at the Old Mormon Fort. A vexillarius showed up and put a gun to my administrator's throat, said she'd die unless one of the doctors agreed to come with him. I...volunteered, if you care to dignify the process that way."

"Doesn't sound much like the Legion. They don't give a shit about doctors so I've noticed."

Arcade actually hears himself laugh, if sardonic and bitten short. "This was different. Caesar had a brain tumor and needed somebody who could help him with the damn thing."

"And you helped him? I'd have spat in his face."

"I did try to refuse. Caesar thought about it and called in Inculta- have you had the pleasure yet?"

"I know of him. Bastard wiped out Searchlight with radioactive waste. If I could get the pair of them I'd die happy."

"Right...well, Inculta took me aside and said that if I didn't do it he would have every slave in camp crucified. With myself last, so I could watch the others die."

"...couldn't do the mercy kill." His patient finishes the last bite of stew, almost meditatively. "Time was I would have asked the hell you were thinking. Now...I think I get it."

Arcade nods, briefly. He tries not to dwell on that night at all. "You didn't mention your name."

"Boone. Craig Boone."

"Wait. Wait, hold up- from Novac? Sniper in the dinosaur? Daisy Whitman used to say how polite you were to her-"

"Daisy Whitman...huh, I can place you now. That mysterious gentleman caller she used to have, I used to wonder why you snuck into town late and left early."

Arcade splutters, finds himself managing to dredge up embarrassment from somewhere. "It wasn't like that at all! Daisy- she sort of unofficially adopted me, when my mother died. I liked to check in every so often, see that she was still all right."

"...okay. Carla liked Daisy, and she had good judgment. Enough to hate everybody else in that forsaken town...but you're good in my book, doc."

It's like he turns off, when he hurts. Face fixed like stone.

Arcade quietly rinses out the stew pot with a little water, dumps the rest of the bottle in with the meager potato. Maybe he'll treat himself to another one, he could certainly eat two-

"Hey. With that and the ingredients for mole rat stew, you might have an actual meal."

"Sure. If I had them."

"It was Carla's favorite recipe. I like to keep the fixings with me." And in clear sight of who knows how many Legion soldiers, Boone takes a bottle of beer from his pack, pours it sizzling into the stew pot.

The past tense explains, why this man's so ready to die.

But doing something that isn't dealing death, mixing up stew ingredients with an almost contented look on his face, Arcade can hope there's something in that man that wants to live, too.


	4. ave to the chief

Caesar's tent, set up against the wall of a pre-war fortress, doesn't look any less imposing than it did previously. With the fiery red glow of the sunset on it, maybe more so.

Arcade sneezes and makes his way inside, trying not to make small bets in his own head about how long he and Boone will last before one of them says something incriminating. Five minutes? Three?

As patented court jester, of course, he's absolved from the need to bow to protocol. Boone isn't, though, and immediately botches it by staring Caesar straight in the face instead of obediently looking down.

"You're a bold son of a bitch and no mistake," Caesar says, matching him glare for glare. "And you saved my life. Which is more than I can say for this so-called doctor here."

...it hadn't occurred to him that Caesar might be in the market for a new favorite, but in retrospect the possibility is blindingly obvious. He can't be the first captive to be toyed with and thrown aside. "I told you already. I did the best I could given the tumor's progression, but there was only so much I could do. If you'd sought treatment sooner-"

_Lucky to still have a brain at all, perhaps get an actual brain surgeon next time-_

Caesar wags a finger at him. "Did I ask you to blather about my medical history in front of this very courageous soldier?"

Arcade winces, lets his self-exasperation show. No point hiding it when a little terror is what Caesar is asking for here.

"It's true, though. I am in need of something more sophisticated than an addled plant researcher and this broken Auto-Doc, or else I fall and the Legion falls. And we wouldn't want that to happen, brave Karolus, would we?"

"Of course not," Boone says, in an emotionless register.

"Good. Fortunately, I've found a solution. A member of the Brotherhood equipped with Old World technology that can do what I wish, for a very small price. He needs a slave. I'd like you to volunteer, do whatever he asks, and kill him if it seems even remotely necessary. You'll have to improvise. He gave me to understand," Caesar says, all his teeth showing, "that anyone I send will be stripped naked by his security. This is the kind of task I normally keep Frumentarii for, but unfortunately, their strengths are contraindicated for a suicidal frontal charge. Which seems to be your one great virtue, if the account Arcade gave me of your victory over the NCR assassins is anything to go by."

Arcade can feel a cold trickle of sweat running down his spine. Caesar doesn't more than half believe that, does he. Throwing Boone at a problem almost guaranteed to end in his death must seem like a neat solution- Brotherhood members wear power armor, any Legionary trying to go mano-mano will lose immediately.

"And you can bring the doctor with you. He might be inept, but he should at least be able to tell if the Brotherhood agent is trying to fob you off with a relic like this pile of junk behind me."

That clinches it. So much for trying to be clever.

Boone remains unmoved. "Point me at the problem, I'll take it out."

"Good. Welcome to the Sierra Madre. Go in, get the Auto-Doc, kill Elijah, come back and you can have a place in my guard without dueling anyone for it, I'll murder one myself. Simple enough?"

"...Ave," Boone manages, and then they're unceremoniously kicked out.

Score one to them, for not actually getting slaughtered in there. Score everything else, to Caesar.

"Fuck this," Boone says. "All I want is a gun in my hands and a clear line of sight."

"Could you say that any louder?" Legion members usually keep a respectful distance from Caesar's tent, but really now.


	5. comedy the color of night sky

"So what did happen with this brain surgery then? Caesar seems pretty ready to kill you over it." Trust Boone to get to the point.

Arcade chews over how to say it, smooths out his bedroll. They finally have a tent to themselves for the night, sparse but better than nothing. "I have no idea. They let me into the contraband chem tent to fix up a soporific, I realised I was in way out of my depth, medically speaking, and uh...overindulged. A bit. In my defence, the surgery wasn't supposed to take place until the next day."

Boone's not quite as uncommunicative as he looks, once you learn his vocabulary of Hard Stares, and this one is pure bewilderment. "So you don't know what the fuck you did, because you were high?"

"...I came to with my hands covered in Mentants chalk, wearing a pair of lucky eyeglasses that weren't mine, the most hideous suit in creation that also wasn't mine, and Caesar congratulating me on a job well done. I might have cured him. I also might have injected so much Med-X into his system he couldn't help but feel better afterwards. I don't even know if I turned the Auto-Doc on that night, frankly."

It's not his proudest moment as a doctor.

He hadn't thought Craig Boone capable of hooting, but apparently he was wrong about that. It makes him look a lot younger too, appallingly so.

"And I thought I had it beat on trying to kill Caesar. I have a gun, I have a pile of Stealth Boys, how far can I get killing every Legionary I see?"

"...where did you get a pile of Stealth Boys?"

"Cleaning out the old Repconn test site, we kept getting ghouls coming up the road to Novac. They said they'd leave if I helped them launch a rocket, I said okay and landed up knee-deep in Nightkin. Went pretty well. The ghouls left, I wiped out Cottonwood Cove and caught their last raft to the Fort." Boone's actually chuckling now, as he scrapes the edge of his machete against a whetstone. "Couldn't have got as far as I did if I hadn't barked my shins against the Legion stash of Stealth Boys, mind. So much for being anti technology, the hypocrites."

There's a difference between knowing the patient he's been treating and worrying over and occasionally checking out must have racked up an inordinate body count just to be here, and getting that information with a smile and a laugh. Suddenly he feels more alone now than he has the whole time he's been here, a friendly face just as murderous as the Legion that surrounds him.

Brotherhood, Brotherhood. Sometimes their members can be reasonable, he's learned that from the new Followers trainee. Maybe they can cut a deal of some kind. A gun for Boone, safe passage back to New Vegas for him...

He can dream about it tonight. Reality won't strike until morning.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, what's up?" The habit of politeness is cultivated for situations exactly such as this, so the automatic response is the correct one. Which is probably good in this case. Not wanting to offend a war criminal.

"...you ever meet Manny when you were in Novac? Sniper working the day shift?"

"I might have met him in passing, but not so as to know him, no. Is it important?"

"...maybe not. But if you make it out and I don't-" Boone frowns, lets a troubled expression slip through now his stoicism is down. "Tell him that I'm sorry I ever doubted him. Should have given him the chance to watch my back one last time."

His attenuated gaydar rears its curious skull. How does that fit in with the Carla situation, what other secrets is Boone hiding under that crew cut?

Maybe he'll ask some time.

Maybe, if they live long enough to start hoping for forgiveness.


	6. ever been a soldier boy?

Huh. Can't feel all my limbs.

Elijah must be twice as paranoid as the Legion, stripping and gassing us. Won't be easy getting out alive here, when I couldn't even make it to Caesar with a weapon. Damn him. No good bringing a knife to a ballistic fistfight.

Hypocrite. Gotta stay alive so I can get back, finish the job properly.

Pretty sure the sky is that color. Not blood in my eyes after all...damn ugly clouds. Wish I had a gas mask. Fountain here is dry but it smells rancid.

Someone's put me in a jumpsuit. Old stuff, maybe prewar. Hell's the point of this? Wouldn't stop a BB gun.

Think I can move some, now. Yeah. Good. Doc's still out cold- damn, he isn't dead, is he? Medic doesn't belong out on the front lines, he never should have been sent with me.

Pulse. He's breathing. Best I can do without any equipment or meds...he has a jumpsuit, too. Kinda short on him, leaves the ankles bare. Exposure could be bad. I don't think that smell is just sleepy gas.

A gun. This is new. No way was he hiding this baby...looks like a grenade launcher, but for microfusion cells. Energy weapon, then, who knows how it works. Not a whole lot of good to either of us then.

Wish I had my beret. Caching it was the smart move, but I don't feel right without it.

"Doc. You okay?"

He chokes in a breath of bad air, spits it out, pulls himself sitting upright against the fountain wall. "All in one piece- do you see my glasses?"

How is it someone this smart didn't see this coming. "No sign of them. Pretty sure you don't get them back until we finish the job."

For a Follower, he has a pretty good vocabulary of swears. But then he did work in Freeside.

"This is insane. I'm nothing but a liability, all I'll do is get us both killed."

"Doc. Don't worry about it-"

I usually don't say enough to be worth interrupting but he's mad and panicking, like a gecko in a trap. "Hold your hand up in front of my face, about a foot away."

"Okay." Easy to do.

"Ask me how many fingers you're holding up."

"Okay. How many?"

"I have no fucking idea. I can read a book just fine if it's three inches from my nose, my perception drops off a cliff after that." He puts his hand to his temples for what looks like a favorite tell- whip off the glasses, nervously rub them clean- realises yet again he hasn't got them, resumes swearing.

I let him get it out of his system. Anybody who's been playing suck up to Caesar probably needs it. "Look, don't fret so much. You're a doctor, I didn't figure that you would be any use in combat in the first place."

Just because he can't see doesn't mean I can't. Arcade's suddenly looking real, real shifty.

"I would normally be slightly more help, but- never mind. Moot point as it stands."

Yeah. Probably knows enough to bash in some junkie's skull so he can get from one end of Freeside to the other. "Maybe we can find some glasses around here. Wasteland's full of them."

"Yes, because they're very specialised and almost useless to anybody besides the original wearer, it's like trying to load a missile launcher with shot- I take it back. If you see any, please let me know, anything would be better than this."

This is gonna be a long slog if ray of sunshine is on the skids. "Well, maybe we would get ourselves killed anyway. Only weapon we've got is some damn kind of energy weapon, and if I start pushing buttons on that we might just blow ourselves up."

Maybe it's just how uncomfortable he looks, but there's something downright naked about the doc's face right now. At least I don't need sunglasses just to function, not at this light level.

"Let me see it."

I pick up the gun, wrap his fingers around it carefully. At least they aren't shaky. "Pretty sure this bit is the safety. Stay away from that."

"Mmm." He holds it up close enough to touch his nose, very thoughtful. Eases him up some to try to figure something out, I know the type.

Too bad I don't have any cigarettes to smoke. I keep a watch out while he worries, fish a few coins from the fountain. Not Legion. Maybe they're worth something around here.

"...you know what, assuming I did get a quasi-functional pair of glasses, I think I could work this."

And it all falls into place. Damn it. Damn him, and Caesar, and the whole fucking Legion. This is too many coincidences to believe.

Only question is, is the doc in on it or not. If he was I'd maul him to death with my bare hands, right now.

"Where would a Follower learn about energy weapons, doc?"

"Oh. Uh...people keep swapping us all kinds of junk for medical services, somebody had to offload it with the Van Graffs. I, uh, picked up a few things from them."

Only thing that keeps him alive is how shit he is at lying.

I mean. He's terrible at it. Anybody who delivered such a stammering mess of excuses to Caesar about how I showed up in his tent doesn't know the first thing about fakery. Else he's been plotting the whole deception from the start.

...and that doesn't fit. No way he could have expected me to show at the Fort, I chose to do that. To him I would have been just a stranger in NCR kit.

It's all a matter of trust. Do I trust him, or don't I.

Damn it. This seemed a lot easier when it was just me getting killed alone.

"Doc. I can spot you."

"That's great, but calling out directions will be a wonderful way of telegraphing intentions to an enemy."

"I don't mean like that. Hold the gun up, look through the sights."

"I can't even see the sights."

"Do it anyway."

"...okay. How does this help at all?"

"Swing the rifle around and point it at me."

"Uh. If you insist."

He lets out a ragged gasp when he realises what he's looking at.

I know what he's seeing, because Manny's done it for me often enough. Red target, burning like the cloud over our heads. Something haunted about them both. Death outlined in blood.

"...what is it I'm seeing, here?"

"Don't want to talk about it. Think you can hit what you need to like this?"

"...yes. I could hardly miss."

"Well, good. Time to get off our butts and go beat up the Brotherhood, then."

Smart one like the doc, I don't figure he'll let it go at that.

That he does is kind of a curious thing.


	7. prisoner's dilemma

All this waiting around and the next step was just switching on a hologram. Not that it was worth the effort.

"One of you puts on this damn collar, I don't care which," Elijah says. "The other one gets killed by Dog though, so I don't advise dawdling."

It would be lovely to ignore this ferociously annoying Brotherhood elder after all, Arcade decides; just his voice is exasperating enough. Unfortunately, even without his glasses he can make out the eager Super Mutant and that turns the jabbering into a palpable threat.

He's never worn a slave collar. He doesn't want to think how much of his obsequious dormancy towards Caesar has been from the horror of one of those things ever touching him.

On the other hand, getting torn apart by a Super Mutant. Not good either way. Without knowing the blast radius of Dog's collar (where is it, he can't make it out even by squinting), they can't use the holorifle on him without blowing up too.

He is getting very sick of the Sierra Madre and they haven't gotten past the fountain yet.

"Job needs two," Boone says, clipped and surly as ever. "Soldier and a doctor."

"I can do without a doctor- Dog, he's the superfluous one."

Arcade blinks, then remembers that he's holding the gun. And none of the paraphernalia that marks his profession. As indeed is the case with Boone.

Oh, this is just fucking hilarious.

"If I don't get him back alive, I'm dead meat anyway. Caesar's personal physician, he was assigned a bodyguard and I'm it."

He has to assume that Boone has gone all stoic and unresponsive. It's the one thing the man's really good at besides shooting, he just wishes he could see it instead of trusting to luck. "Look, if you insist on slave collars, what about putting one on both of us?" Compromises, the basis of civilised interaction. Which this profoundly isn't, but never mind.

"No more slave collars," Dog says sadly. "Dog was confused, Dog left you to ask for advice."

Arcade has to take a moment to remind himself that since the entire point of the exercise was getting in touch with Elijah, sitting around bawling about his glasses instead of say, running away and hiding, was actually the thing they were supposed to be doing. Or the thing Caesar wanted them to be doing, which come to think of it might not have been the best plan after all. Fuck, this is getting complicated.

The Brotherhood elder huffs. Audibly. "I don't have extras. A pity, since I could put them to good use."

Boone will want to murder this man. Might not be worth playing devil's advocate.

"Master wants another slave collar? Dog can give them his slave collar, Dog is very obedient!"

Arcade peers at the Super Mutant in perplexity, trying to make out what's happening now.

"...the hell?" Boone is saying- and then a horrible hacking slosh, like a waterfall made of slime. A clatter of metal on stone. "Did you fucking eat a slave collar?"

On second thought, maybe it's just as well he can't properly see this. The smell alone drowns out the toxic metallic flavor of the air, and can't really be called an improvement.

"Dog has a slave collar for you now, Master! Helpful Dog!"

There's a noticeable silence. Then, "I suppose that if one of you wants to put that...thing, on your neck, you can both live."

"Not me," Arcade says immediately; and feels slightly ashamed about how fast off the mark that was.

"I'll clean it off and take it, I guess. That's the trouble with soldiers, they don't have the stomach for real gore," Boone says.

That was...that was a joke. Boone's enjoying this.

The small part of his mind that isn't contemplating the view into insanity town figures that might be quite a good thing, actually.


	8. letters you won't send

Queer thing about this mess, it isn't going so badly as I would have figured.

Take the rad suit ghouls. Move around like lightning, make a hissing sound worse than mating Cazadors, you couldn't blame the average field medic for crying and wetting himself. Let alone being able to kill them because of freakish death vision.

Arcade's rolling with it, though.

He knows how to shoot- clean, not wasting ammo, he handles the holorifle like a professional. Somebody got good training in his past, and energy weapons isn't Legion or NCR. Puzzle box like Carla had, solve one and there's another inside.

With spotting, he can see farther than I can for throwing spears and such. He's not as good at that, but good enough, can handle switching weapons on the fly. Maybe I interrupted a Followers assassin out for Caesar's blood. If they have such things.

...but this level of expertise, it's like working with Manny again. Hadn't thought about how much I missed that, since Carla. Hadn't wanted to, if he turned out to be guilty.

If I hadn't needed answers enough to listen to No-bark, might be I'd still suspect him. Couldn't face him again, knowing I'd been so ready to imagine jealous hate that wasn't ever there. Easier to skip town.

Goddamn it, I could use him here and now.

...wouldn't wish this place on anybody but the Legion, though. Beep beep beep, shit's going to blow up if you don't wreck a radio. That's my job, the spotting doesn't work on tin boxes. Where the ghouls get so many knives I wish I knew. We can use all we can find.

We can use anything we can find. I haven't been this lightly-loaded since walking out of basic, screws with your head if you're a hoarder type. Carla knew what that was about, teasing me for being her pack Brahmin. Though for her I'd have done it, even if I didn't want to.

Fuck. That smell is getting stronger, reddish fog moving in on us.

Don't like the look of this. Maybe it does get worse.

***

_Carla,_

_Wrote you a letter for my death, once. Think I might be writing you one from hell now._

_Doesn't make sense. Nothing's touched us, we're not crippled or wounded, just...more than halfway to dead. Arcade's so bad he needs a throwing spear for a crutch now. I'm tougher but not by much._

_Nowhere to run in this place, just endless alleys and crumbling buildings. Cloud covering everything. That Brotherhood man wasn't kidding about how much it burns._

_Can't live in a place like this. But can't seem to die either. We're up on a rooftop now, cleanest air we can find. Hoping it'll clear enough for us to get back down._

_Think I might finally have run into something as bad as what I did at Bitter Springs. Maybe we deserve what's happening to us._

_Still not dying. Maybe I'm too stubborn to rest in peace._

_Damned or not, though, if there's a Legion left out there I want to go down fighting it. Not whatever this place is, whoever the ghouls are._

_Wish I could say like one of those songs you used to play on the jukeboxes, that love will pull me through. Can't._

_Guess hate will have to do._

_***_

_Carla,_

_lost track of time. Can't be as long as it feels, neither of us have slept yet._

_That can't last. Vending machines that'll spit out any junk food you want but no Nuka-Cola. Arcade's going crazy over that. This cloud gives you the worst thirst._

_No sign of clean water yet, either. I'm mapping the place best I can but cloud doesn't help, we've circled back to a broken radio more than once. There's two people we're meant to be finding but no sign of them yet. I'd swap one hand for a working Pip-Boy._

_Did figure out how to handle the ghouls better. Arcade nails a headshot to take them down, then I get close with a knife and chop a limb. Dangerous, because they bleed acid, but they won't get up again this way._

_No ghoul I ever heard of works like that. Who knows what they are._

_Think we might have enough chips now to risk buying some food from the vending machines. Can't imagine it'll taste too good in this cloud, but it'll help._

_If the damn things still work._

_***_

_Carla,_

_they work. Got all the Sugar Bombs and InstaMash we could afford, couple of Salisbury steaks to liven it up. Even a few doctor's bags. Meant turning in the cigarettes I've been collecting, but it was a worthwhile exchange, breathing is bad enough here as it is._

_The Legion is why I haven't been chain smoking lately. I still won't thank them for it._

_***_

_Carla,_

_hit the jackpot. Found a place to sleep out of the cloud, running water, small stove, booze, everything in one place. Stale old police station that looked like the Strip did, first time I saw it. Lights in the dark._

_Arcade took some coaxing to start drinking, said that somebody had packed this suitcase of stimpaks and chems more recently than the war and what if they wanted it back. I didn't argue. Just gave him the microfusion cells stashed at the bottom and opened up a scotch._

_Still don't like it. Sorry. But liquor is liquor._

_We finished off the bottle, found a few more, ate our fill. Got wasted. I mean, I needed it, but I wasn't trapped with the Legion that long. Arcade had been kicking around with them cold sober for months._

_He let go in a big way, talked ghoulification and rads at Vertibird speed. Made a point of splitting the snack cakes evenly, squinting best he could, and then I found some glasses and you would have figured it was the deed to the Lucky 38. He tried them on, said it would give him a headache but they'd do, then he broke down and cried on my shoulder._

_Didn't blame him._

_Carla. I'm never going to get over what happened to you._

_But I read your letter to me until it fell apart, and maybe I'm ready to believe it now._


	9. sex and violence (violence not included)

"Arcade Gannon, you're extremely drunk."

That he's saying it aloud seems to confirm the validity of the statement. Good.

Boone looks up briefly from his compulsive scribbling. It seems backwards somehow that he's sitting here with the scotch while Boone is writing, but he can't entirely think of why. Tomorrow Arcade's problem.

Tomorrow along with the hangover and scavenging for survival and getting to one of the people they're meant to be rescuing. He giggles, tenderly adjusts the angle of his new glasses. They're utterly priceless, at least until he gets back to the Old Mormon Fort and can grab one of the three pairs he's put by for emergencies.

"What are you doing?"

There is a definite moment during which Boone has decided not to answer, but then he does. "Letter for my wife."

"Oh."

 _Try to put a little more effort in, Gannon._ Except that he's not entirely clear what that should be, with the Manny situation, and, oh..."I'm sorry about her."

Boone gives him a look even more devoid of reaction than usual. "Do you know what happened?"

"...no. But this is the Mojave. I'm extrapolating."

Boone grunts. "She was born in Vault 21. Made hats. There was a vendor outside the Ultra-Luxe who made a good thing selling them for her, she had a pre-war sewing machine and could handle anything short of a military-grade helmet."

"Do you want me..." Arcade hesitates, wobbles sufficiently when he tries to stand that sitting seems the wiser course of action. "Should I ask?"

"Water under the bridge." Boone toys with a cigarette from a half-empty pack, puts it back and picks up the clipboard again. "Try again."

"Then," Arcade frowns abruptly, feels at his neck to see if the collar is still there. It is. "The thing...thing. What about that?"

Compiling a list of the variables causing him to have hit this level of coherency would take long enough he'd be sober before finishing. Never mind.

"That thing," Boone says, sharply enough to break his pencil between words. He takes out a knife and starts whittling a fresh point. "Don't ask about the thing."

"Understood." He is absolutely dying to know what science involves making targets glow, but that's not Brotherhood or Legion business and it might not even be his. Much as he wants to find out. Man has a right to secrets.

He pipes down and just watches for a while. The scratch of pencil lead. The way Boone's frowning over the letters, a hint of pink tongue at the corner of his mouth, so profoundly earnest. The slight glisten on one side of his jumpsuit, catching the light-

oh. Oh! Fuck.

"I was crying on your shoulder earlier." The whole chain of memories pops up obediently, now he's looking for it.

"Don't worry about it."

"I-," Arcade starts, and promptly stops, because he was going to say he's sorry now but that might be misconstrued as rude, and why can't he offload some of this eighteen-caret vocabulary right now, except making his mouth say it sounds difficult. "So you don't mind."

"In your position I'd have beaten my brains out against a Legion tentpost ages back. You're pretty coherent for a prisoner of war."

Now isn't that rich, being told he's coherent by a...why is he thinking like this? That's Enclave talk, isn't it?

He firmly shoves that whole line of thought into a box and locks it away. "I should shut up and go to sleep now."

"Probably," Boone agrees. He folds the letter up, tucks it in a pocket. "I'll wake you when I can't stay awake any more."

"A watch? Do we really need one?"

"I'd rather not risk it."

It's either argue or go to sleep. He falls asleep trying to decide.

***

"Wake up before I pass out."

A return to the land of the living. Not as rough as it could have been, he'd drunk so much water in ecstatic indifference to lurking radiation. Rads can be cured later, dehydration not so much.

Arcade returns to the sink for more and turns around to find Boone already out, small and vulnerable the way people are when they sleep. Dragging the mattresses from the cells into this kitchen had been a good idea, there's a double layer for sleeping, another to sit on.

Compared to the life he was living, sustenance on sufferance and a guard every moment, this is the lap of luxury. Even the slave collar-

he feels the harsh metal against his throat again and shudders, returning sobriety hitting hard. This is not normal. This is not a state to get used to. He deserves better than this, as does Boone.

For a moment he considers crawling right back into a bottle, but they don't have an infinite supply and besides, Boone's trusting his life here. Best keep steady hands.

Old world poetry marching through his skull. Center cannot hold. If he has to get to terms with what's been happening to him, he will fall apart right here in this kitchen.

 _Focus, Gannon. Focus._ Still too much out of it. 

Boone turns over in his sleep, emits a soft snore, and it's silly to say that does it when it's the weight of death pressing down on them, attraction formed out of raw aching need, spending the most stressful hours of his life wrapped up in concern for the person before him; and something turns over and now he's in love. Or at least lust. His body, fed and watered and rested, is absolutely desperate for release.

A jumpsuit's not ideal for this sort of activity. Arcade removes it, adjusts his position to be able to see the entryway and Boone both, the other man's body gently rising and falling with each breath. The rhythm of it is steady, reassuring, makes for a fine counterpoint to his own meditative movements.

If an enemy comes in now, his senses are on high alert. Listening, seeing, it's an acceptable risk.

Boone isn't asking for this.

Boone doesn't need to know. They're keeping enough secrets from each other, he can have one more.

The crescent-shaped scar trailing down past the ear, normally covered by the beret. Rounded curve over the ribcage, a callus on the forefinger of indeterminate origin, every small detail whispering him on as he pulls and pulls and comes-

\- the whoop of pleasure as he does so, clutching the butt of the holorifle for support, is tremendously unintentional.

Boone opens one eye, fixes his squarely.

"Huh. Nice to know you're human like the rest of us."

Sitting naked and covered in cum is so far past any reasonable course of denial or explanation, truth will have to serve. "I do find you very attractive, but we seemed to have enough to deal with without me dumping that on your head."

"...how about you give me a handjob, and we'll call it quits."

There are so many more extravagant ways to show a man a good time, but- this is Craig Boone. No surprise if he likes to keep it simple.

Arcade wipes himself off, ruining the lining of a poorly made fedora in the process, and crawls over to start stripping off clothes. It's a struggle- the jumpsuit is tight and Boone isn't helping much, limp with exhaustion- doesn't give him much to work with here. They might not get very far.

Nevertheless, it's incumbent on him to make the attempt.

Arcade teases Boone's soft uninterested cock into a slightly more pliable form, careful application of fingertips that have touched a delightfully varied share of yielding flesh. This is pleasant enough, would be so even in better surroundings. Back and forth, back and forth, the hold is blessedly familiar after the holorifle grip and rightly so.

Still not getting very far. He lies down, tests a quick light lick along the shaft for a sounding before putting his mouth to work.

Boone twitches beneath him, shifts his weight, like the whole world turning over just for him. "Thought you'd just do it quick, not massage and swallowing thrown in."

Arcade doesn't hurry his investigation, the gentle play of tongue and lips, before withdrawing to reply. "Do you want me to argue or get you off?"

Boone does the thing he does best and shuts up.

He does quicken the pace after that, though- manipulation here, delicate squeezing there, minimizing the exploratory touches he would quite like to linger over- and it really is much too soon, when the warm rush hits his mouth.

Normally he would swallow, but the act ends in an anti-climatic puddle of spit and less attractive flavors, drooled out into a rusted tin can. "Tastes like cloud. No offense."

"None taken." Boone does, actually, sound relaxed now. He's unconscious in seconds.

Arcade clambers back into his own jumpsuit and covers Boone best he can, before picking up the holorifle to keep a proper watch this time.

Everything that's stewing between them right now, he's not even sure this will change the dynamic between them. Death is the only thing more intimate than sex.

In this Sierra Madre hell, though, it's nice to have one thing to simply feel good over.


	10. three is company, four's a crowd

"You can't be serious," Arcade hears himself say.

Christine is inspecting the bear trap fist they've been able to spare her, scarred and silent; possibly just to avoid watching Boone kick an Auto-Doc open.

"Can't help you two any with crippled wrists," Boone says, glowering at where blood is still gently seeping through his impromptu bandages. "It's not like this is the same one she was stuck in, it should be able to do something simple."

Arcade looks around the ill-kempt clinic, smelling of rotted meat and metallic cloud, hopes fervently this place won't feature in any nightmares. "Words cannot express what a bad idea I think this is."

He looks Boone in the eye, fighting down rising terror. If it was just about fixing injuries- if he knew for sure it was that, and not Boone checking out on him, now that an expert fighter with her own stealth suit is around to play nursemaid.

"I don't like being useless," is the only reply he gets.

That much is hard to argue with.

Christine, surprisingly, breaks the impasse. She studies Boone's broken arms, frowns exaggeratedly, turns to the Auto-Doc and spends a while carefully examining its circuits inside and out.

"He was saving me from one of the ghouls out there," Arcade explains. "I ran out of microfusion cells for this holorifle."

Silence. He really should have expected that.

Also, he definitely should have memorized Boone's fake Legion name, but between one stress and another the damn thing has slipped his mind. The man himself doesn't seem to care about being introduced- they're here, they fight, they want to kill Elijah once a workaround for the collars is possible. Having established that much via sign language seems to be all Boone cares about.

Maybe that is all that's important, right now. The longer the Villa holds them in its vortex, the more life seems to be spinning out of control.

Christine steps back from the machinery, nods at Boone. He steps inside without hesitation.

Arcade listens for any untoward sounds, heart in his mouth, while time spins on. So many tasks still to do, before they even get to the casino.

"...it was a pyrrhic victory. The ghoul- uh, his name was Dean Domino- he threatened to blow me up just because of general paranoia, so Boone broke his legs with a spear." Halfway through it occurs to him that Christine might well interpret this as a threat. And that maybe his tired subconscious meant it.

However, she looks undeniably pleased. Points at the Auto-Doc, at herself, bares small teeth.

"He...he put you in the broken one? By mistake?"

Shake of the head.

"On purpose?"

A fierce nod.

Any doubts he'd had about Boone's judgment, leaving the ghoul hobbling in his mess of traps, evaporate. Amazing how he keeps finding new ways to be horrified by depravity.

Boone pops out a while later, intact and healthy.

This place makes less sense by the minute.


	11. how tough do you think you are (it won't be enough)

Not sure I'm gonna make it through this one.

Others should make it, though. Arcade's as safe as a hologram guard can make him. Without the energy ammo I had a better chance of surviving this solitary run to the bell tower and back. Who knows what we're doing or why, something about opening the casino by setting off fireworks. Good job I was collecting guns and ammo all along. Some from that ghoul's suitcases. 

Too bad he didn't leave one here. Not sure where here is, even- an alcove, out of the cloud but we already raided it for supplies. Can't say I'm too healthy after stumbling around blind for as long as I did. Cloud doesn't seem to slow the rad suits either.

A stiff wind could knock me over. Never mind everything else. Should have listened to Arcade, saying that I would need supplies more than he would.

Huh. Bottle of dirty water rolled under a shelf. Last thing standing between me and my grave, then.

Guess it's force of habit, to shove it into a pocket like I'm leaving...yeah. I'll have to. Can't sleep here, might as well try a suicide run when I get my breath back.

Make it easy for Arcade to find me, so he knows what happened. Christine can get him home if she wants to, with that stealth suit. Better chance than I'd have.

Dirty water never tastes that good, but a gulp and spit washes cloud out of my mouth. Rest goes down my throat. As last meals go I've had worse.

Something at the door. Better get this police pistol ready, I'll need to burn ammo in close quarters like this.

Door opens. It's Arcade.

"...the hell?"

"When you didn't catch up with us at the rendezvous, I came along your path to find out what happened- I was worried," Arcade says, very frank. "You look like you could use a doctor."

"Yeah."

No point saying I already made my peace with not having one. There's a sort of glint in Arcade's eye when he's got the bead on an enemy, same as he has now. Lot of eagerness in that man, and I don't know where it comes from.

Makes me freeze for a second, thinking.

"Symptoms of shock? Anything we haven't encountered before?"

"No."

That Sierra Madre armor suits him well, made for tall men who can handle the weight. Doctoring seems almost a waste of a tough potential. Those big hands could snap a neck in melee, with the right training.

Arcade's not interested in that. He's clicking his tongue and wasting stimpaks. Pain is starting to ease- cleaner and quicker than healing powder. Doesn't leave you feeling drunk.

"We can catch up with Christine and Dog at the casino, and then it's just getting into this vault and we're done. And out of here, I fervently hope."

No use expecting good of a slaver. Could be Arcade's just saying that for Elijah, but if we walk away it won't be the Brotherhood's fault. Veterans always said the fight with them was tough but worth it, I understand that more than ever now.

Wonder how Arcade's touch is so cool, in this muggy air. Same as at the police station too. Like being caught in a vault and following the one trail of fresh air to safety.

"...mind those bandages, please, I could only sterilize so much cloth..."

Thing I don't want to think about is how much, despite everything, he is determined to keep on living. Every move he makes, each inexplicable joke, rubs it in my face- think of Carla being like this.

Hurts me like hell.

Not his fault, though.


	12. respite is the moments you carve out

_Welcome to the Sierra Madre_. Words wrought on a mural older than the war.

Arcade finds himself staring at them, since it's across from a couch and it has been so very, very long since he had access to a comfortable couch to sprawl over. That last trip to Jacobstown, maybe? Super Mutants are into big supportive furniture when they use it at all.

It's just restful, to have a place to sit where his lungs aren't bleeding out and nobody is wielding spears or machetes. He closes his eyes, leans gingerly against Boone so as not to aggravate any wounds.

The other man is tense, wary still; muscles ready for action, a high fast pulse. Maybe that is the more sensible perspective. Given what the casino has thrown at them so far...

His radio collar crackles to life, with Elijah's voice. "Well? What are you two doing?"

"He's passed out," Boone says shortly. "And I...am just the doctor."

"Then get him moving."

"Medical opinion says no," comes the reply, and Arcade tucks a fist against his mouth to smother laughter, knowing the way he's shaking now must be a dead giveaway to Boone. "He worked his ass off getting us here, if you've survived this long you can sit tight for a few more hours."

A sharp hiss of discontent. "I can explode those collars at any moment I choose."

"But you won't just yet, because there are still things you need us to do. So we'll get them done. Once he wakes up."

There's a crackle of static, then nothing. Apparently it is possible to get the last word on Elijah.

Arcade lets a tired smile slip out, slides down Boone's arm until his head is resting against the crook of an elbow. Must be too constraining or something, because the next thing he knows his head is in Boone's lap.

Hello.

It smells of course, flesh that hasn't been bathed for too long, Boone's persistent scent of gunsmoke and a medley of tobacco varieties. Almost distractingly pleasant.

It'd be good to have this but somewhere else, he thinks. One of those overdone rooms at the Gomorrah that offer cushions deep enough to lose yourself in, or even just a flop at the Atomic Wrangler, old wooden beds and new straw ticks. Anywhere that they could be assured of a quiet privacy, left in safety.

"I'm not a people person, Julie," he remembers saying- but it would be nice to hear the bustle of a city again. From inside somewhere cosy. Thin Follower tents don't count.

Or maybe Boone would want to head home to Novac. That wouldn't be so bad- he could do with a talk to Daisy, and it's a secure settlement by Mojave standards. NCR guards just up the road for the power plant wouldn't let the Legion take it. They could just stay a while, heal, get to know each other honestly.

Because he does know better than to assume this is all there is to it. Boone's fraught, halfway towards a suicide by Legion-

well, yes, it's a little hard to see how they can get out of this, let alone if Boone basically doesn't want to-

but the thighs beneath him are softer than anything he's slept on lately, a hand is tentatively running through his hair. He's a healer- it's his job to imagine the broken made whole, wounds made right again.

"Love you," Arcade murmurs, low enough that Boone doesn't have to have heard it.


	13. when the vault opens

"This is my fight, not yours."

I can respect that. If somehow I had the chance to confront the slaver who took Carla, I wouldn't take too kindly to anyone stepping between us.

So Christine heads down to the vault alone. The way she describes it, even if Elijah does blow her collar down there we won't be affected by it. If she's wrong, we won't know the difference either way.

"I'm finding it difficult to relax," Arcade says.

Could have fooled me. He's fixed up Vera's bedroom for comfort, taking her bones out and filling a cabinet with the bar's supply of liquor. Like a man planning a honeymoon- or a siege.

"Okay. How do we handle Caesar when we get out?"

"I have," Arcade says, toying with an armor strap. "I have considered, bringing that Auto-Doc to him. The malfunctioning one Christine was trapped in."

Huh. Goes with the way he described knowing the use of a ripper, the coolness he shows under fire- fair chance we'd be dead if he was the soft Follower he looked like. But I don't know I like this better.

Then I remember this isn't his first turn as a slave and my worries go away.

"...I would die, of course, but that in itself isn't a reason not to do it."

"Same with me. But if you felt like that, why wouldn't you have killed him already?"

"Saul has killed his thousands, but David his tens of thousands," Arcade mutters. He opens a bottle of wine, sniffs it, pours out sticky redness into a glass. "Because as bad as Caesar is, I am concerned about a Legion run by Lanius. It doesn't necessarily do the NCR any good to replace a sick, confused man with a competently merciless warchief on the edge of battle."

"...figured as much. I kept my ears open when we were there."

"That- is surprisingly perceptive of you." He offers me another glass of wine, I take it. Addiction is our last worry right now. "I would have assumed your general bloodlust towards them, not that I'm decrying it, would encourage you to take down Caesar regardless."

"I want the Legion crushed." Old wine's too sweet, more like drinking syrup than anything bottled in NCR. "If you agree that killing Caesar won't do that, not much point."

Except that it's an end.

Odd aftertaste this wine had, like dead flowers.

Arcade sighs, scratches at the wrist of his jumpsuit. "Then again, of course, the most realistic alternative to the Legion is staying put. Which, depending on the casino's supply of batteries, we could potentially spin out quite a while. There are quite a few people in the Mojave who would count themselves lucky to have a bolthole like this."

I can almost see it better when this place was first bombed, two people holed up in a suite while the world's collapsing outside. "I'd rather go out and die killing some more Legionaries."

"...the sad part is, so would I? I've spent a sizable portion of my life trying to approximate pacifism as far as is practical in the Mojave- no offence- but faced with the prospect of an unwholesome afterlife locked in a dead woman's suite and starving on dilapidated macaroni, somehow a final charge doesn't sound like the worst way to go out. I'm fairly certain my father made much the same decision," Arcade says, moodily propping a hand under his chin.

Shit. If I had a cap for every story I heard from NCR soldiers about their daddy issues, I could buy Cliff's stock of dinos. "Don't get killed just to prove yourself to a dead man."

He lifts his eyebrows. "That's a low blow, so- don't do it just because you didn't die with your wife, either."

"...fuck, you're not suggesting I live through this. I'm done with Novac. And First Recon is out of the question."

"Why is that? You're not terribly old, and they can't fault you for lack of skill."

Can't tell him the truth, about partnering with Manny- First Recon always pairs off, that's how it works- how it went sour, what it would be like getting another partner even if I wanted to.

Don't know where the thought comes from, that it's a shame Arcade can't partner me. That's crazy. Odds so bad even a casino wouldn't offer them.

"Ever heard of Bitter Springs? I was there."

Arcade softly whistles through his teeth, fills up my glass. "Forget I said anything. In fact I'll try to forget you said anything, before I start making invidious comparisons between you and the gentlemen outside the gate."

His voice gets sharp when he's angry, shrill even, it's cold and the cold is like wading out of a hot spring into winter air. I've had officers promise me I did what I was supposed to do, my own corporal commend me when I got my discharge papers. Whole weight of the NCR to back me up, saying I was right to do what I did.

Arcade is just disgusted. That feels better.

"So this is about atonement? Flailing yourself for killing civilians?"

"...sure."

Arcade snorts. "Then I can't stop you one way or the other. All I can offer is a piece of advice that an old friend told me once. He said, if you've fucked up so badly it's unforgivable...you're only taking the coward's way out, by running towards the bullet instead of trying to make amends. The point isn't making the scales right, because you can't- but do what you can to weigh them towards justice anyway."

"Huh. Interesting types you get in the Followers."

"What? Oh...yes, right. We certainly do."

I still don't understand how anyone is this bad at lying.

"...okay, but-"

There's a sound at the elevator. I leave Arcade grappling with his armor and run to see who's survived.

Christine is splayed over the carpet, a Gauss rifle in one hand, a bearded head in the other; she's gasping for breath, as though she's been running hard.

"So you got him."

She shakes the bloodied head in my direction, a fierce prize. "Barely made it out in time, Sinclair had a time lock on the vault. That holorifle was a better weapon than I'd imagined, I couldn't have managed without that."

Arcade appears, winces. "As soon as I get one of you patched up, all my work gets undone."

"Then next time I'll let you take on the Brotherhood Elder," Christine says, her voice very dry. "Which one of you was the doctor, then? You kept contradicting each other."

"Yours truly," Arcade says, kneeling down with his doctor's bag of tricks. "Father Elijah made a slip up when he saw me with the holorifle, and, uh...we didn't think he would take kindly to being corrected."

"I see. Yes, he would probably have blasted one of you for that." She sits up, looking satisfied, confident. Someone who finished off her foe with no need for second thoughts.

Guess that can't be me, anymore.


	14. fortunato

If this is going to be his last stand, Arcade reckons, at least he'll be able to make something of it.

Christine is almost invisible in her neat black stealth suit, while he and Boone are dressed in sturdy Sierra Madre armor. All three of them are laden with carefully tended weapons, abundant ammo, battlefield weapon kits to spare. Every kind of chem the vending machines can supply- Julie would be so nonplussed to see him laden like this, but if a well-timed dose of Buffout is the difference between survival and death, he'll put up with an addiction lecture very happily.

They might not even use any of it, depending how lax the gate patrol is- but the urgent thing is for Christine to get away unnoticed. Fair turnabout for her own rescue. With her peculiar skill set, she can take out any guard set on them without a sound. 

At least, so she says; and anybody who decapitated Father Elijah probably knows their way around death.

Boone touches the casino door, unexpectedly curses. "Won't open."

"What's up?"

"What I said."

Christine smoothly pulls up from a crouch, inspects the sturdy doors. "I don't recall any trouble getting in."

Arcade gives it all of five minutes, before decamping to the mural couch. The air of bloody anticipation has given way to a rather dismal anticlimax.

"Did something go wrong with the opening thing we did?" Boone asks. "With the fireworks?"

"I don't see how," Christine says, putting her shoulder against one door. "Getting in, yes. Getting out, there wasn't even a mechanism to prevent that in the Gala code."

"Thought you said you couldn't write," Arcade pipes up.

"If you want a transcription of my thoughts in machine code I'll generate it from a terminal," Christine says, grunting. No movement.

"Stand back," Boone says, equipping his automatic rifle.

A sizable amount of ammunition and an alarming number of ricochets later, it's clear that isn't a viable tactic either.

"...was this part of Sinclair's plan as well?" Arcade ventures. "Close down the whole casino if the vault was breached, I mean?"

"Fuck," Boone mutters.

Christine doesn't respond, just walks over to the reception terminal, her scarred face flushing even under forgiving casino lights. Her typing is rapid at first, then slows.

When it stops without a word of explanation, he knows he was right.

***

_two weeks on_

So this is what life's like now.

Wake up in Vera's warm, fussy bed, shins draped over Boone's ankles, the smell of last night's mutual jerkoff still faintly staining the air. He's less practiced at it than you might expect a soldier to be, but he's coming along.

It's something to help fill the hours, of which there are too many these days.

Junk food and scotch for breakfast, nodding across the bar to Christine. She's commandeered the vault elevator room for her own, and after helping to drag in bedding and a few good chairs, you and Boone aren't allowed in there any longer. It's fine. Helps ease tensions, that she has the option to withdraw from the parlour at will and try fighting Sinclair's defenses again.

In theory Boone and you could also use the occasional break from each other. In practice, you don't seem to be getting around to that yet.

Once Boone is awake and done eating, the regular routine of prospecting begins. Junk for the holograms, to swap for pre-war money. Cigarettes and clothing earmarked for the vending machines, or occasionally put aside if it's something you'd wear or Boone would smoke. Nice clothes in your size can be a struggle to find.

(It's been long enough since you've seen an enemy, that sometimes you'll swap out of armor to try a good jacket- and sometimes you'll take a turn with Boone under a chandelier, dancing a slow waltz to Vera's crooning wail.

You'd show him something less fussy, if you could be sure the choreography wouldn't mark you as Enclave.)

Today you're raiding the theatre, the only place in the casino that hasn't been thoroughly picked over by now.

"Thought of what happens when we run out of loot?" Boone asks.

"...we do have a good collection of chips by now. Blackjack is always a possibility."

"Huh. I'm not smart enough."

"I'm not lucky enough."

Boone picks through old bones, fishes out a shiny metal keycard. "This any use?"

"I think it's just for that terminal I unlocked already,"; though you pocket it regardless. That hadn't been kind, the unknowingly tragic messages. Even on the verge of war, people's humanity had persisted on shining through.

"I mean it, though. No good being able to turn fission batteries into chips if there aren't any more batteries."

"I suppose it's not beyond the realm of possibility that the Legion could charge in and save us." The possibility has been tickling the back of your mind, ever since finding the emergency broadcast system.

Boone makes a face, rather an achievement for him. "And let them get cloud and rad suit tech?"

He's baiting you, for a response commending wholesale slaughter. You don't bother.

The main floor of the theatre has empty and full alcohol bottles, rubbish, a safe even. That'll be a job for Christine, she's better at lockpicking than either of you.

"We might get lucky. There could be a whole fortune tucked in there, maybe you can die to pre-war malnutrition instead of Legion bullets."

There's a flicker behind his new authority glasses. "You really do think...forget it."

"Easy to forget what wasn't said in the first place."

He grunts and shoves dusty ashtrays in a suitcase.

Truthfully, there's no danger of running out of chips any time soon, even with three of you. It's the prospect of this going on indefinitely, years stacked on years, that's making him snappish and you sardonic; having to spend the rest of your lives reaching for each other, because there isn't anyone else.

(Christine, clearly, is queer as fuck. Fine by you. And Boone isn't the type to go for anyone who is technically still in a state of war with NCR, handy ally or not.)

No. It's the same question you expected to be confronting when this was over, but more calmly, and with the option of walking away if it fizzled. This claustrophobic, isolating setting isn't doing anything to ease things.

Except that at night, when Vera Keyes is crying from some distant circuit Christine hasn't been able to isolate yet, the only way out of this nightmare is to lose yourselves in each other; and the longer this carries on, the more inseparable you'll become.

You reach for a sheaf of music, let your hand fall away again. "If you do want to talk, there's something you still haven't explained. The red vision, what's the deal with that?"

Boone's lips quirk; on a more relaxed man it might even have turned into a laugh. "Yeah...okay, fine. They'd have my head back at McCarran for explaining. but they would just for what I've done already. If we get out, mention it and you can be hauled up in front of a firing squad. Still want to know?"

Curiosity will murder you. Arguably, it already has. "Go on."

"First Recon is for low-level psykers, anyone too dumb to notice they even have something going for them until an army doctor points it out. You get trained how to push it a little- not a whole lot, if you're any kind of competent they want you for better things anyway. But to be able to...well. Sense what's out there. And false-color it in red."

Somehow, all you can think is that this information has to get back to Julie. This is obscene. "But you can't do it for yourself?"

"I could," Boone says. He flicks an ancient cigarette stub out of an ashtray, lights it. "They tried that with the first iteration of the unit. Everybody went mad. Now you're only allowed to do it for your partner, and your partner does it for you, and, well. The last thing you'll never see."

"...what does it feel like?"

"Nothing." He shrugs, sucks in smoke, and a camera right now would capture something they'd pay good money for in certain parts of Westside. "Feels like being in a fight, tense and watching out and concentrating like hell on not dying. All the shit anyone goes through. I don't have enough ability to do much else with it anyway."

"And Bitter Springs...."

He spends a long time inhaling before answering. "Manny, I think might have it stronger than I do. He sicked out on us that night, so I went to the lines and did my duty while he played hooky with Dr Richards." Boone taps his sidearm. "You still have to know how to shoot, or all the hocus pocus in the world won't help. I gunned down those women and children honestly, if you want to put it that way."

No time to even start getting to grips with this, because then he throws a curve. "So now I've spilled my guts, what's your secret?"

Shoot. Should have seen that coming. "What makes you think I have one?"

"Mostly that if Daisy raised you, everybody in Novac knows she never flew for the NCR. Vertibird pilots just don't wind up in a frontier dump like that. Too much training. And she's old enough for the Enclave war, so." He opens a fresh cigarette pack, lights it from what's left of the old. "Pretty sure I could get the drop on you if we start shooting, but I'd rather not."

As if you'd stand a chance. "That's, uh...surprisingly open minded of the town. If they thought they were harboring a war criminal. Wow."

"Yeah, well, they made a good thing on scavenging old tech, then the Brotherhood put a stop to that, then the NCR moved in, now they're just living on remnants and the occasional lost tourist. Enclave are about the only people who haven't pissed off Novac- I figured you knew this, since she lived there."

"...I tried to stay out of sight. Just to be on the safe side."

"Mmm. I'm not saying go there in power armor, but I don't think you'd get shot for having a past. Goddamn hypocrites," Boone says, rather distant. "They took me in, after all."

You never would have thought, upon finally having this conversation, that it would be with someone who thinks he's a bigger war criminal than you. "But you don't seem concerned about me either."

"Hell. How old were you when the Poseidon rig went?"

"One and a half. Five when Navarro fell."

"You want to tell me that as a five year old you shot an NCR serviceman in the face, I'll return the favor."

"...um. No."

"Okay then. If I was still enlisted, I'd be responsible for shooting you right now. I'm not. And maybe,"- and he seems to be having more trouble than usual, getting the line out around his smoke. "Maybe I'm done shooting people for reasons that I know damned well don't make any sense. You tore your Followers coat apart to stop me bleeding to death. I owe you. Even if I didn't, that doesn't sound like the big bad horror of the wasteland, that sounds like a Follower with a fucking strange past."

You say nothing.

He walks over to you, takes the cigarette from his mouth. It takes a moment to realise that he's offering it to you.

It's damp and tastes like spit and has a horrendous tarry burn, but it isn't your first time. You remember how it goes, breathe in, then breathe out smooth puffy smoke.

Boone's hand is warm against your back, as high as he can comfortably reach.

"Well, this is all very touching and remarkably good blackmail material, but I have to say, give time for someone else to fit in a word of dialogue, eh?"

Dean Domino is standing on the stage, grinning down.

Boone doesn't move. Just growls. "How'd you get in?"

"Oh, a long and fascinating story! After recovering from that remarkably ham-fisted assassination attempt, I wended my cheery way to the gate, opened it up, found some rather nice soldiers in Roman panto dress wandering about the place- long story short, they very kindly agreed to help me open the Sierra Madre yet again. Now if you don't mind, I have a rather exciting production to put on, involving some absolutely killer holograms-"

Boone downs him with the automatic. The ghoul crumples fast.

"If you have to shoot," he mutters. "Shoot. Don't talk."

"You've been quite chatty yourself."

"Before I knew I was going to be doing more shooting...we're both going to regret this chat, aren't we."

You probably should; but the knack of warm rich tobacco in your mouth has come back, and you wouldn't trade this moment for anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Christine and Arcade and Boone will all get a lively OWB sequel tentatively titled "into the fire". When I've recovered from writing this one.


End file.
